The big league Cubs are off today, which makes for a good time to check in on a whole lot of Cubs prospect bits that have been piling up on me …
Cubs GM Carter Hawkins is in Iowa to visit with the team there, doing some evaluation and development work. Tommy Birch spoke with Hawkins about a number of Cubs prospects, and you’re going to want to read it here. Among the newsy bits, outfielder Alexander Canario (shoulder and ankle surgeries) *COULD* be back at Iowa sometime in July. That would mean we should see Canario playing in Arizona Complex League games sometime this month. Lots more in there on Ben Brown, Pete Crow-Armstrong, and more.
I’ve gotta share this Hawkins quote on outfield prospect Brennen Davis, who is really struggle in the results column at Iowa this year, despite dramatically lowering his strikeout rate:
“The fun part about Minor League Baseball, unlike big-league baseball (where) if you’ve got three bad months, that’s on your big-league card for the entire year, your baseball card for that entire year. Minor League Baseball, we don’t really care about what happens. We care about what’s going to happen. You make a fundamental change, you make an approach adjustment that puts you on the right path. The fact that your cumulative numbers for a year don’t look pretty is irrelevant to us, and I think Brennen’s got an opportunity to do that as he continues to make adjustments and continues to get back into playing every day. He’s a guy that struck out a lot before his injury last year. He has really cut down on those strikeouts, but at the same time, really hasn’t done the damage on the ball he has in the past. So I think he’s finding that balance for him right now and making an adjustment to be able to do that. If he does, there’s a lot of talent there and he’ll help a major-league team out for a long time.”
That tracks with what we’ve HOPED was happening with Davis: a specific effort to work on contact and pitch recognition to reduce the strikeout rate. Then, once he becomes more comfortable, you hope the power and hard contact can come back. Fingers crossed.
Owen Caissie hits the ball just about as hard as anyone in baseball:
Unlike just about every other statistic, you can actually get a lot of information about a player from max exit velocity (and Xth percentile exit velocity) with a very tiny sample. The mere fact that Caissie is CAPABLE of producing exit velocities like this is a huge boon to his prospect status (to say nothing of the fact that he’s doing it at Double-A as a 20-year-old). The defense in the outfield has really been improving this year, too, as he gets more experience. I think he’s a top-100 prospect.
By the way, Caissie is currently hitting .287/.366/.567/150 wRC+ with Tennessee, and although his 37.8% strikeout rate is extremely high, it’s worth keeping in mind that (1) the league-wide strikeout rate there is nearly 30% (remember the pre-tacked ball), and (2) going back to April 23, his strikeout rate is just 31.0%. (Also, the .421 BABIP is obviously high, but when you’re hitting it as hard as Giancarlo Stanton in Double-A, you’re probably going to get a whole lotta hits on your balls in play.)
Speaking of guys who deserve top-100 consideration:
If you missed it, Bryan wrote up the big stuff from yesterday’s busy day of farm action, including Cade Horton’s NINE-strikeout four-inning start. Horton, who is prospect 88 to Baseball America, had a rude first outing at High-A, but he’s dominated since then. A reminder that Horton, 21, barely pitched at all in college. He is a “college” draft pick, but is much closer to a high school draft pick in experience than a true three-year college guy. What he’s doing this year is kind of incredible.
The sample is still too small to really leap (71 PAs), but James Triantos so far at South Bend is doing everything you’d dream he could do. Not only is he hitting line drives all over the place, as he does, he’s hit as many extra-base hits (5) as he’s struck out (5). And he’s walked one more than that (6). Triantos, the Cubs’ second round pick in 2021, turned 20 back in January.
The guy selected after Triantos in that draft was lefty Drew Gray, who immediately looked like a steal when scouts got more eyes on him the subsequent fall … and then his UCL popped. He’s been rehabbing since, and is finally getting into game action in extended spring training. I expect he’ll pitch in the Arizona Complex League later this month, and then maybe finish up the year at Myrtle Beach. If he comes back all the way to where he was pre-surgery, he’ll immediately be back on the top-30 Cubs prospect radar.
Also, if Gray shows up at Myrtle Beach, he’d be joining fellow IMG Academy lefty Jackson Ferris. The Cubs’ second round pick in 2022 made his pro debut at Low-A this year, which is pretty incredible. Cubs AGM and VP of Pitching Craig Breslow talked to The Athletic about the decision to give Ferris such a challenging assignment:
“It’s about the physical maturity, the emotional maturity of the player, the ability to build out a routine and stick to the routine such that we feel like the upward trajectory continues as we challenge this guy on the field as much as we possibly can,” Breslow said. “Jackson kind of checked those boxes for us in that he’s got a maturity about him, he’s diligent in his work in the training room, in the weight room and conditioning, in his daily throwing such that we didn’t have to fear that if we sent him out to an affiliate and outside of as rigorous oversight as you can have in Arizona, that some of those habits would regress. But instead (we) felt confident he would carry them and therefore we had the opportunity to introduce a greater level of competition in a way that would be beneficial as opposed to detrimental.”
B.J. Murray getting some love:
Chase Strumpf, whose May Tennessee just about matched what B.J. Murray was doing, finally got the bump to Triple-A Iowa, and naturally homered in his first plate appearance: